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1.2.6-Kcrabb88
Brick!Club 1.2.6 Jean Valjean For me, reading this chapter just drives home what a truly incredibly transformation Jean Valjean undergoes throughout this story, because this is just…the saddest of all the sad things I’ve ever heard. I devoured this book the first time I read it, so reading it a second time slowly like this allows for so much more in depth contemplation of Valjean’s journey here, a journey that has it’s turning point with the bishop’s kindness, but it’s also one that I’m sure Valjean struggled with for the rest of his life, because it cannot be so easy to shake off that hardness he learned at the galleys. We have a man who went into prison “sobbing and shuddering” and came hardened and sullen, a man who Hugo describes as having an affectionate nature, so hearing his story in this chapter is just heartbreaking. I keep getting stuck on Hugo’s description “Jean Valjean was of a thoughtful disposition, but not sad, which is characteristic of affectionate natures” because even later in the story when Valjean has turned his life completely around, when he’s found at least a sliver of happiness in building a life with Cosette, I can’t help but think of him as sad because even still, he’s always running from that past he can’t quite escape. He’s content maybe, but still sad. But yet still affectionate, which we see very clearly with Cosette, but it’s almost as if he has to learn to be who he was before the galleys all over again, and yet he cannot be that exact same person. Anyway, I’m jumping ahead of myself. I’ve always previously had this hang up with why Valjean would continually try and escape, but for some reason this reading made me realize that he really, truly had nothing to lose, at least in his mind, when he tried to escape; his family was gone, and he had no one else, so what was the harm in trying to escape? He was not free in prison, he was not really free on parole, and even though freedom through escape still meant, as Hugo says “to turn your head each moment, to tremble at the least noise” it was still the only chance at even partial freedom Valjean possessed. Valjean certainly might have known happiness in the years after breaking his parole, especially during his time with Cosette, but this chapter made me realize he never really knew true freedom. And now all I can hear is Combeferre saying “To be free…” And wow, now I’m having all kinds of bittersweet Valjean thoughts. This post was written under the influence of antibiotics, decongestants, and Robitussin, so please excuse any lack of coherence. Commentary Pilferingapples Yeah- as brave and powerful as Valjean’s spiritual journey is through the book, it’s also so deeply sad and frustrating because so much of it is just him getting back some of what he already was. And the thought of what he might have been if he’d been free (ha, yes, hello Combeferre, we miss you from way back here) to build on his original nature instead of being broken down and having to build back up first is heartbreaking.